


hold my breath until the morning

by seeingrightly



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-21
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:32:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6918382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeingrightly/pseuds/seeingrightly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blue and Gansey sit close in the back seat, the Orphan Girl curled up so as not to disturb them, Chainsaw bundled in her arms, somewhat agitated. It's very quiet. Ronan's fingers twitch, but it doesn't feel right to turn on the music, especially his kind of music.</p>
<p>Adam puts his hand on top of Ronan's. There is a very, very brief moment where Ronan thinks he’s going to lose control of the car, and then he breathes, and he turns over his hand.</p>
<p>They drop off Blue and Gansey, and Ronan drives toward the Barns.</p>
<p>Adam pulls his hand away and brings it to Ronan's neck. Bruises, from when Adam's hands tried to kill him, just a few hours ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold my breath until the morning

**Author's Note:**

> i started writing this a few hours after finishing the series in bed in the dark on my phone and then it took me like two weeks to finish oops. the whole time i read the books i was like RONAN :///////// and i hope i make u feel that way too
> 
> thanks to [melissa](theverytiredgirl.tumblr.com) and [alicia](ravenboiz.tumblr.com) for forcing me to read the series/listening to me complain/editing/being terrible/the usual
> 
> title from "until the morning" by charlene kaye

Sometimes, when Ronan is falling asleep, he worries that he really did dream Adam.

The jut of his cheekbones, the simultaneous certainty and uncertainty of his stare, the way he always smells of grass and motor oil. His sometimes smile, his gut-punched laugh, his hands, his hands, his hands.

Ronan knows the difference between a dream thing and a human. He knows the difference between a human and whatever Adam is with Cabeswater, whatever he is now that Cabeswater has left him. 

Ronan knows the difference between a dream thing and Adam, but sometimes this is hard to remember.

-

Cabeswater gives them Gansey back, Gansey again. Whole, or not whole exactly - more, possibly. But Gansey.

They stand there, near the cars, near where Cabeswater used to be. Blue has blood all over her face and Ronan knows he still has poison from the demon on his. The Orphan Girl clings to Adam’s arm, which is still pink and indented from ribbon they removed ages ago. Henry Cheng's hair is still perfect, and so is Gansey.

"Well," Gansey says finally, raising a concerned hand to Blue's forehead. "We should get this fixed."

"I'll drive you to the hospital," Ronan says.

Blue and Gansey sit close in the back seat, the Orphan Girl curled up so as not to disturb them, Chainsaw bundled in her arms, somewhat agitated. It's very quiet. Ronan's fingers twitch, but it doesn't feel right to turn on the music, especially his kind of music.

Adam puts his hand on top of Ronan's. There is a very, very brief moment where Ronan thinks he’s going to lose control of the car, and then he breathes, and he turns over his hand.

They drop off Blue and Gansey, and Ronan drives toward the Barns.

Adam pulls his hand away and brings it to Ronan's neck. Bruises, from when Adam's hands tried to kill him, just a few hours ago.

"Parrish," he says.

"I know," Adam says, "but -"

Ronan grabs the hand and brings it to his mouth, presses the knuckles to his lips, not kissing them exactly. He just holds them there and breathes. Next to him, Adam is very still for a long moment.

"Okay," Adam says quietly, finally, and he brings their hands back together, entwined.

The Orphan Girl makes a strange noise in the back seat, and Adam turns to check on her while Ronan can't.

“What are you eating?” Adam asks, more curious than concerned by this point.

She makes another noise and he reaches back to her with his other hand, coming away with a slobbery pile of loose change that he dumps onto the console.

“Gross,” Ronan says.

“You know, she needs a name,” Adam says. “A real name. We can’t keep calling her the Orphan Girl forever. And we can’t give her a name like Chainsaw’s, for that matter.”

The raven screeches from the Orphan Girl’s lap.

“She doesn’t seem to think it’s so bad,” Ronan mutters.

“I like Chainsaw,” the Orphan Girl says, and Ronan catches her sticking her tongue out at Adam.

He’s very aware that he can’t keep calling the Orphan Girl what he called her in his head. She’s in the real world now. She’s a spindly, screechy dream thing he brought into the real world, and he has to name her.

Only it doesn’t feel real, that she’s here now, pinching at him and often talking in that language he can’t understand here. It certainly doesn’t feel like forever. And to name her would mean keeping her, knowing that he gets to keep her, believing it.

He wonders how long it took his dad to name his mom. He wonders if Matthew was born with a name or without one, and who gave it to him.

-

Adam shows up in his dreams a lot.

Ronan is a practiced dreamer, and Ronan is practiced at watching Adam, and so the Adams he dreams are very close to the real thing. He knows, of course, that he doesn’t know what real Adam is really thinking, but he knows how Adam acts, reacts to things, most of the time. And interacting with an Adam in his dream is always predictable. Easy.

As long as Ronan doesn’t do anything unexpected, something uncertain, something he couldn’t predict Adam’s reaction to. He doesn’t want an exchange that he’d have to force. He doesn’t want to have to guess, fill in the gaps.

When Ronan dreams about Adam, they’re lying in the grass in Cabeswater, complaining about homework, about Gansey losing his glasses again, about Noah appearing in the middle of the night to whisper the Murder Squash song into their ears while they sleep.

Sometimes, Ronan’s fingers get a little too close to Adam’s, and Adam notices but doesn’t do anything about it either way, just like in real life.

Until now. He’s not sure what his dreams about Adam will be like now.

-

They sleep in Ronan’s bed that night, after everything ends.

They detour to the kitchen first, depositing the Orphan Girl and Chainsaw in the living room, where they’ll probably continue eating bits of the carpet together. Ronan and Adam eat standing with the fridge door open, whatever they can eat immediately, prying off their shoes with their toes, Ronan throwing his jacket on the floor. Adam lists sideways a little as he watches, bumping his shoulder on the edge of the fridge and making the light shudder for a moment. He still looks half asleep despite the jolt.

“Okay,” Ronan says. “We’re sleeping now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Adam says, and he leans forward to put a baggie of baby carrots back into the fridge. 

Ronan swings the fridge door forward til it taps against the back of Adam’s legs.

“Hey,” Adam says, and then he says it again when Ronan shuts the fridge door on him repeatedly until he gets out of the way.

“Come on,” Ronan says, grabbing Adam by the elbow, and he keeps his hand there as they make their way up the stairs, shuffling, stumbling, not bothering to turn on the lights.

When they get to his room, Ronan drops his pants and flops onto his bed, kind of diagonal with his face mushed into the pillow and the balled-up blankets pressing into his stomach uncomfortably. After a moment, he raises his head a little to see Adam waiting by the door, looking a little uncertain and a lot tired.

“Come on, loser,” Ronan says.

He puts his face back into the pillow. Maybe he’s wrong, maybe this is weird, maybe that noise is Adam taking his pants off, placing his hand on the door handle so he doesn’t topple over - Ronan rolls a little as the bed dips.

Adam kicks at him until Ronan moves off of the blankets, and Ronan huffs loudly before he rolls over to face Adam, letting him pull the blankets up to their chins. It feels silly, and it feels warm, and for a moment Ronan almost rolls away again. But Adam is looking at him, a sleepier version of that steady, intentional way he looks at Ronan, not betraying what he’s thinking, but letting Ronan know he’s very, very much there.

Adam reaches up and places his thumb in the divot between Ronan’s nose and mouth, and flakes of dried poison fall onto the pillow.

“You should wash that off,” Adam says, his accent creeping in heavily. “What _is_ it?”

“I’m not fucking moving,” Ronan says. “I’m sleeping.”

Adam shifts in close, puts his head more on Ronan’s pillow than his own to stare at the poison contemplatively, like he’s trying to find a way around it.

“This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about kissing someone even though it could kill me,” he says, and Ronan huffs loudly again, and then he thinks about it, and then he turns to get up and wash his face.

“I was joking,” Adam says, startled, sitting up and bringing all the blankets with him.

“Wasn’t funny,” Ronan says, heading into his bathroom.

He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want to fight, he doesn’t want to think about death, he doesn’t want to think at all.

On Friday, he kissed Adam, and Adam kissed him back. On Saturday, his mother died. On Sunday, so did Gansey, but then he came back. Ronan was nearly unmade, and Matthew and the Orphan Girl and Chainsaw were nearly sent to an eternal sleep. At some point, Noah had vanished, probably for good. Tomorrow, they’re supposed to go to school like none of it happened.

He washes the black flakes off his face and ears and neck as best he can, and when he turns around, Adam’s in the doorway. When Ronan steps close, Adam puts a hand on his hip, ghosting his fingertips til he sees Ronan isn’t pulling away, then gripping at the bone.

“Sorry,” Adam says, which is interesting, because that’s not something they’ve ever really done, and Ronan wonders for a moment if it’s the exhaustion or - whatever they’re doing now. “It, uh, probably isn’t great to joke about dying a few hours after your best friend dies, even if he comes back. And - sorry for bringing up Blue?”

Ronan makes a scornful noise.

“Sargent is really not a part of the problem,” he says. “The other thing, though.”

He shakes his head, puts his hands on either side of Adam’s face and moves in close. Adam’s free hand comes up to his wrist, touching the leather straps there.

“Shut up,” Ronan says, even though Adam isn’t talking, and then he kisses him.

It’s a calm, steady thing, surprising after they day they’ve had, the lives they’ve had, but Ronan presses close and Adam lets him, pulls him in by the waist, meets him at every turn, holds him in place. Ronan has been restless for so long, but staying still doesn’t feel like being trapped anymore. 

For him, at least.

Adam must feel him tense up just a little because he pulls back, that furrow between his eyebrows, but Ronan doesn’t let him, kisses him again and again. 

“Adam,” he says, quietly, just once, in between kisses, like that will make a difference, like that will mean keeping him.

-

Okay, sometimes Ronan pushes the boundaries a little. Sometimes he rests his knee against Adam’s. Sometimes he sits a little closer than he normally would. Just little things he thinks real Adam might let him do, if he tried. Little things he would never do if he was awake.

-

Adam sleeps hard, curled against Ronan’s side, his mouth pressed to Ronan’s shoulder through his shirt. It’d be a gift if not for the cause, his ability to sleep, always, greedily, always needing to catch up, just like how he’s always ready to eat.

Ronan turns, lets his nose brush Adam’s hair. 

Chainsaw flies into his room through the open door and lands on the nightstand, making a soft, curious sound. Ronan glares and flips her off, hoping she doesn’t wake Adam. After a few more seconds of hopping around, she leaves, disinterested.

Even though Ronan is exhausted, he can’t fall asleep. He knew this would happen, if he brought Adam into his bed, but Adam sighs and shifts a little in his sleep and doesn’t notice if Ronan touches his knuckles, the shell of his ear, lingering, and so Ronan doesn’t care.

It’s not like he’s not used to being tired.

He’s not sure what it’ll look like, when he goes to sleep next, and he’s not sure what he might bring back, and normally there’s a door between him and anyone else.

Adam’s fingers twitch against Ronan’s arm, and Ronan thinks that he’s never sleeping again.

It’s the tingle at the base of his spine when Adam says his name, and the heat in his face and ears and neck when Adam kisses him back, and the nervous clench of his stomach when Adam looks at him for more than two seconds at a time, sure, but it’s also this: the clench of his teeth at the thought of what he might bring back while Adam’s lying next to him.

Adam’s fingers twitch again and Ronan’s entire body jerks, his eyes opening.

He’s not sleeping. He’s not.

-

Once, Ronan had a dream about Adam where they were sitting by a lake in Cabeswater, not really doing anything. Ronan was lying down in the grass and Adam was sitting next to him, reading, and Ronan’s hand was clasped loosely around Adam’s wrist.

Adam’s voice woke him up, and when he opened his eyes, he was in his bed at Monmouth, Adam sitting on the edge of it. Ronan’s hand was outstretched, just shy of Adam’s on top of the blanket.

“Where’s your book?” Ronan asked.

“What?” Adam said.

“Nothing,” Ronan said, but they didn’t believe in coincidences, and Adam was wearing the same shirt he’d had on in the dream.

It took him another minute or so to realize he hadn’t been paralyzed when he woke up, that he woke up normally. It took him much longer to look Adam in the eye that morning.

-

When Adam wakes up, Ronan closes his eyes. He’s not expecting Adam to believe him, really, but Adam won’t call him out on it either.

He hears Adam shuffle around, probably looking for Ronan’s phone, and he curses quietly, probably when he sees the time. School will have started by now, and Ronan should have woken Adam up, but he couldn’t.

And Adam doesn’t wake him up either. While he gets dressed, Ronan rolls onto his side, gets comfortable, thinks about letting himself sleep once he’s alone, thinks about what the Cabeswater that only lives in his mind might look like now.

He tries not to let his breath catch noticeably when Adam leans over him and puts a hand on his arm. He stands there for a couple of seconds like he’s not sure what he should or can do, and then he goes.

Ronan stays in bed for a bit longer, thinking about sleeping, thinking about not sleeping.

He sits up and grabs his phone. Declan answers after a few rings.

“Ronan?” he asks, and he always sounds a little worried when Ronan actually calls him, today more than usual.

“How’s Matthew?”

Declan sighs, tired.

“He’s okay. He’s - he’s sleeping, normal sleeping. For a long time, but it’s normal. He’s gotten up to piss a few times, you know how he his.”

“Yeah,” Ronan says, closing his eyes, lying back down and pressing his face into the pillow hard for a moment.

“What about you?” Declan asks, and Ronan laughs. “Ronan.”

“Whatever was happening stopped,” he says. “You know I’m fine because Matthew is.”

He can hear Declan’s frown through the phone, can see the way he’s hovering in Matthew’s doorway like a creep, like Ronan would be doing too.

“Do you think,” Ronan starts.

“What?”

“That we should tell Matthew.”

There’s a long pause.

“I don’t want to.”

“Jesus shit, Declan, I don’t want to either,” Ronan says. “But should we.”

“I don’t know,” Declan says. “I don’t think he’ll figure it out.”

“I know. I don’t either.” Ronan pauses. “What does he think happened yesterday?”

“He thinks he passed out. Dehydration. He’s happy about sleeping in this morning,” Declan says, a little amused, soft in a way he never was with Ronan. “Well. We’ll keep thinking about it, I guess.”

In one of the barns, under a blanket, next to a sleeping cow, is an object that doesn’t quite take form and doesn’t quite do its job. He’s almost told Declan about it a few times, but he can’t yet, not til he gets it right.

“I guess,” Ronan agrees.

“How _are_ you, Ronan?” Declan asks, and Ronan hangs up with a muttered _Jesus Mary_ , but he doesn’t throw the phone like he always used to.

He lets it drop onto the bed and thinks about that object, waiting for him. He needs to get it right, but he needs to sleep to fix it.

A shower, first, and some breakfast, poptarts for him and dead mice for Chainsaw and, who the fuck knows, maybe more splinters from the kitchen table’s legs for the Orphan Girl, and then out to the barn.

-

He’s lost a lot of sleep thinking about how he didn’t know his mom was a dream until he found her sleeping, how he didn’t know his brother was a dream until he was told. Now he sees the signs, now that he knows it’s possible, but now that he knows to look, he can’t stop.

Even when it doesn’t make any sense. 

Even though Gansey has a long, long family line, had a life and a second shot at it years before Ronan ever met him. Even though there’s criminal evidence that says Noah existed and then stopped existing years before Ronan ever met him. Even though Blue is nothing Ronan ever would’ve wished for, nothing Ronan ever could’ve anticipated needing in his life. Even though Ronan would never, ever have dreamed Adam into the life he’s had.

Even though he asked Declan, quietly, not looking him in the eyes, after he found out about Matthew, if their dad had dreamed up Ronan himself. Even though Declan told him no.

He can’t stop.

-

Ronan lets the Orphan Girl hop up onto his back as they make their way outside. It’s hard to get a good grip on her weird legs, but she’s strong despite her appearance and can hold herself in place pretty well with her arms. Chainsaw flies ahead of them.

“Where’s Adam?” she asks.

“School and then work, probably, and then maybe work again,” Ronan says. “And then, I don’t know, home?”

She huffs out an annoyed sound that Ronan agrees with. He stops in his tracks suddenly and turns back toward the house, like he can maybe see what’s on the other side of it if he glares hard enough.

“What?” the Orphan Girl asks.

“That asshole must have taken my car,” Ronan says, a little impressed, and then he falters. “Or… Christ, or he walked all the way back.”

He closes his eyes, pained.

“Car,” the Orphan Girl says, patting him gently on the cheek. “I heard it.”

“Oh, good,” Ronan says, and then he laughs, “That fucker drove my car!”

“Does that mean he’ll bring it back tonight? So you won’t be trapped here? So he has to come back?”

“Oh,” Ronan says again, “good.”

When they get into the barn, he shakes the Orphan Girl off onto a bale of hay and makes his way over to the blanket holding his last attempt. He sits down and leans against a sleeping cow and pulls the blanket onto his lap, frowning.

If he’s going to try again, he has to sleep, and he needs to try again. For Matthew. No matter what the Cabeswater in his mind looks like now. He tilts his head back against the cow’s back, gently rising and falling with her breath, and closes his eyes, and thinks about Adam sitting next to him, Adam paying close attention as Ronan explained what he was trying to do, Adam watching him. He’d felt like his skin was too tight, the way he always does when he notices Adam watching him back.

He jumps a little when he remembers that they’ve moved past staring at each other and into doing something about it. What exactly they’re doing, what Adam is doing, he still isn’t sure of.

Adam’s fingers have been sure on Ronan’s hipbones, the back of his neck, his jaw. Adam’s mouth has been sure and hungry and yielding. His eyes are sure. Ronan knows this.

But Adam is leaving. Ronan knows Adam is real, not a dream thing, because a dream thing wouldn’t want nothing more than to leave. Ronan wouldn’t have designed him that way.

Ronan wouldn’t have designed a dream thing to love, not on purpose, not the way his dad did. But if he had, it would’ve turned out a lot like Adam. At least, that’s what he thinks now. He can’t remember wanting anything else.

Ronan cracks an eye open to see the Orphan Girl burrowing into the pile of hay headfirst. He shifts to rest his head more comfortably against the cow’s side and tries and tries to sleep.

-

Once, he dreamed that Adam was leaving.

No - he’s dreamed this many times. But once, just once, he grabbed Adam’s wrist and held on until Adam looked him in the eyes and said, “This isn’t the way to keep me. The real me.”

Ronan let go and woke up with still-warm fingertips and hands that, in the waking world, had always been empty.

-

He tries to sleep. He switches cows. He goes back inside to eat lunch. He takes off his shoes and socks, because he hates wearing socks to bed. He comes close, and he comes close, and he comes close.

Ronan has been in that blurry stage just before sleep for a long time, and he’s startled when something nudges his foot.

“Ronan.”

He opens his eyes, rubbing at one of them, and Adam is there, standing above him with the Orphan Girl in his arms, with Chainsaw on his shoulder. Ronan’s small floating lights have floated down from the ceiling of the barn to illuminate the hollow of Adam’s throat and make his pale eyelashes glow white. Something in Ronan stills.

“Give me back my car keys,” he says, kicking Adam in the shin.

Adam puts down the Orphan Girl, though she’s reluctant to go, and sits, leaning back against the cow’s side, letting his leg overlap with Ronan’s and their arms press together.

“Have you actually slept?” he asks, and Ronan looks away.

Adam sighs and grabs Ronan’s hand and stands and Ronan goes with him, startled. It’s getting dark out when they leave the barn, and Ronan wonders what time it is as Adam leads him to his bedroom. He rubs at his eyes again, still feeling groggy, and lets Adam push him back until he’s sitting on the bed.

“Okay, go to sleep,” Adam commands, and Ronan laughs, and Adam leans down to kiss him on top of the head, and Ronan’s breath leaves him.

Adam stills above him, and then he sits down on the bed. After a moment, he moves so that he’s lying down, and he kicks at Ronan until he does too, pulling Ronan until they’re on their sides, face to face.

“Hey,” Adam says, and he looks uncomfortable but he continues. “I’m here, Ronan. I mean it. Really. I mean this.”

He squeezes Ronan’s hand between both of his, between their bodies.

“Okay,” Ronan says, and Adam looks at him, frowning.

“Okay, but…?” he asks.

“But what?” Ronan asks, being difficult, and Adam groans, tugs on his hand.

“You tell me,” he says. 

Ronan sighs and pushes his face into the pillow and closes his eyes.

“You’re here for now,” he says, and he feels Adam deflate.

But then Adam curls in close, their knees brushing together, his nose touching Ronan’s forehead.

“I don’t,” Adam starts, and it’s shaky, and it makes Ronan stop breathing, stop thinking as he listens for more. “I’m not. I don’t feel - the way I used to. About leaving forever.”

Ronan pulls back. Adam’s eyes are open but he’s not looking at Ronan. He’s not really looking at anything, and his lips are pressed into a tight line, and his hands are shaking around Ronan’s.

He wants to ask what that means. He wants to ask how Adam does feel now. He wants to ask a lot of things, but instead, he brings his free hand to the side of Adam’s face and his lips to Adam’s forehead.

“Okay,” Ronan says. “Okay, Adam.”

He stays there until Adam takes a huge breath against Ronan’s neck and then pulls back, looking even more uncomfortable than before.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Shut up,” Ronan says. “You’re here. I’m here.”

“Right,” Adam says, still a little shaky, but he curls back in. “You’re here and you need to be asleep.”

Ronan huffs and pushes Adam til he’s on his back, and then he throws an arm and a leg over him, pushing his face into his shoulder.

“Not like this,” Adam says, a little amused and a little annoyed. “I have to do homework after I put you down for the night, you know.”

“Shut up,” Ronan says again, biting Adam’s shoulder through his shirt, and Adam yelps.

Adam pinches his side and then rubs his hand across Ronan’s back, soothing.

“You’re such a dick,” he mutters, and when Ronan opens his mouth he adds, “Don’t say, ‘No, that’s Gansey.’”

“But it is,” Ronan says.

“What are you going to do with the Orphan Girl during school tomorrow?” Adam asks. “Who I assume still doesn’t have a name, by the way.”

“Who says I’m going to school,” Ronan says. “Maggot texted and said I could drop her off at 300 Fox Way in the morning if, in exchange, I drive her to school, and if I come up with a babysitting fee Orla will like better than… I don’t remember the phrasing, but it was something about my hot bod.”

Adam laughs, bringing a hand up to cover his face, and Ronan’s chest hurts with it.

“Don’t be jealous,” Ronan says as seriously as he can manage. “Blue told Orla that she saw her future and it was snake-free.”

“Oh my god, go to sleep,” Adam laughs.

Ronan closes his eyes, still smiling, and Adam runs a hand over the back of his head, the pads of his fingers dragging against Ronan’s short hair. Ronan sighs.

-

Cabeswater smells weird.

Ronan opens his eyes. He’s still lying on top of Adam, but they’re on the grass in Cabeswater, and Adam is asleep. There’s ruin around them, but the forest is starting to recover, new trees growing faster than possible in the real world, and the grass is soft under his hands and he sits up fully.

“ _Kerah!_ ”

The Orphan Girl jumps onto his back and nearly knocks him over onto Adam. It’s strange, being here with them, knowing it’s not really them and knowing how real they feel anyway. Knowing this is all the Orphan Girl was, once, not that long ago. He pulls her around to his front, and she flops down across his lap and holds out a hand.

“What’s this? Something weird and gross?” he asks, but it’s just a rock, smooth and pretty, whitish and reflecting lots of different colors as he tilts it.

“Something pretty,” she says in that other language of hers. “You’re weird and gross.”

She pulls away from Ronan and lays down, curled against Adam’s chest.

He’s not sure how strong Cabeswater is right now, but he thinks he can dream up something small, take something small back with him. He thinks Cabeswater will help.

-

Adam doesn’t notice the necklace around the Orphan Girl’s until they’re trying to convince her to get into the car so they can bring her to 300 Fox Way. 

The opal is hanging from a long leather strap, swinging back and forth as she gallops between them, ducking past their arms. It looks crudely made, and it’ll end up covered in bite marks, but it’ll just match his own leather bands. Ronan likes it, and so does she.

“What is it?” Adam asks. “The gemstone.”

“The trees said it’s an opal,” Ronan says. “She found it and brought it to us.”

Ronan says it casually, carefully, like it’s not a big deal, like it should be as normal to Adam as it is to Ronan that Adam was in the dream. Adam looks like he’s thinking about asking something else, but then his arms dart out and he catches the Orphan Girl around the waist and plops her in the backseat.

“How’s Cabeswater?” he asks instead as they get into the car.

“Getting better,” Ronan says. “Smells like shit though.”

He wants to ask if Adam misses it. He bites his lip as he heads down the long road away from the Barns. Chainsaw flaps from the backseat to land on the dashboard, and Ronan shoves at her until she retreats to one of Adam’s knees.

“It’s weird,” Adam says. “It being gone. Gone from me, I mean.”

“Bad weird?” Ronan asks.

“No,” Adam says slowly. “Definitely good. But it still feels weird.”

He spreads his fingers and looks down at them a little helplessly until Chainsaw starts to peck at them. Ronan swats her away again and takes one of Adam’s hands in his own.

“It’s good, though, isn’t it,” Ronan says carefully. “Not to be - to be tied here. You know, magically bound or whatever the fuck. To Henrietta.”

“Yes,” Adam says firmly, nodding. “Coming back is going to be my choice.”

Ronan turns and looks at him, looks for longer than he should while driving. Adam’s jaw is set, but he looks certain, not scared.

“Okay,” Ronan says. “Good.”

Adam lets go of his hand to reach over and touch the collar of Ronan’s shirt.

“Would you wear your tie like a normal person if I told you that, uh,” Adam says, pausing for a moment. “Remember last week in Latin when I got that question really, really wrong? It was because you actually had your tie done up.”

Ronan does it again, turns to look for a dangerous length of time, because he has to see the blush creeping up Adam’s neck to his ears.

“Oh,” Ronan says, and then he adds, “I’ll think about it.”

“Actually, don’t,” Adam says suddenly. “I want to graduate.”

Ronan laughs, and even to his own ears it sounds outrageously pleased, shocked out of him. He ducks his head a little, as much as he can while driving, and tries to ignore the feeling of Adam’s eyes on the side of his head.

“Shut up,” Adam says, and it doesn’t make sense but it does, it helps, and Ronan lets his shoulders drop back down as Adam takes his hand back.

Ronan could never have predicted this, could never have filled in the gaps the right way, if he tried to have this in a dream. 

There’s no limit to what Ronan can dream, technically. His dream things don’t always work right, come out right, make total sense. He can’t dream what he doesn’t understand, and if it’s something that doesn’t exist yet, he has to try til he gets it right.

In order to get it right, he has to know exactly what he’s looking for.

“I feel a little bad for taking your car without asking yesterday,” Adam says suddenly, looking out his window. “I feel like I should pay you back, so, um, you can take mine for a spin whenever you want.”

Adam’s shoulders shake with laughter as he keeps staring out the window.

“Jesus Christ,” Ronan says, shaking his head, and Adam turns to him, grinning.

He couldn’t have dreamed Adam, Adam as he really is. He couldn’t have come up with this. 

Ronan’s a practiced dreamer, but even he’s not that good.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr at [lydia---branwell](lydia---branwell.tumblr.com)


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